Club Championships
The 36 hole final between Jase Hyland and Richard Hill featured some fantastic golf from both players. Jase opened the final a little shakily with a poor first hole before finding the water on the second to give Richard the early lead however he quickly found his feet and with both players reeling of a number of pars the contest was evenly poised. A win on 7 saw Jase close the gap before a lucky chip in on 8 gave Richard a lead heading into the back nine.
Richard continued to reel off pars and with Jase having tree trouble on the 11th and 12th after wayward drives the gap started to widen. A tap in birdie on the 15th got Richard to 3 under the card and although he made a late bogey on 16 he held a commanding lead of +6 heading into the second 18.
With an uphill task facing him Jase started playing aggressively leading to back to back birdies on the 5th and 6th. Unfortunately Richard continued to reel off par after par with solid tee to green golf and bogies on 1st, 4th, 7th and 9th left Jase dormie 7 playing the 12th. After a wayward tee shot that required a reload, and with Richard sitting safely on the green in 2, the hole was conceded and Richard Hill became our 2017 Club Champion with a resounding 8&6 victory. Although a lopsided final score full credit to the phenomenal golf played by Richard with a score of -2 through the 30 holes played.
A 36 hole final was also completed by our B grade finalists of Garth Watts and Andy Amberg with this match going the full distance. The early going saw Andy only manage to grab small leads across the first 18 holes with players equally dispersing their good and poor holes. With a win on the 18th Andy had managed to grab his biggest lead of the match going out to 3 up.
In the second half Andy took the early control stretching the lead to 5 but from there Garth had the better of the play with most holes squared or halved, reducing Andy’s lead to +2 with 6 holes to play. Wins on 13 and 14 had the match well in Andy’s control before faltering late to only hold a lead of 1 heading to the 36th. However a bogey from Garth and a par from Andy meant a win and Andy Amberg became our B Grade Club Champion with a 2up victory.
The C grade final played over 27 holes was a seesawing battle between Alan Horsfall and Robert Grinter. Both players struggled early but the score remained close with neither player able to grab a lead of more than 1 through the first 13 holes. It was Alan that struck the first real blow reeling off wins on the 13th to 17th to stretch the lead to 5 up with 10 holes remaining however Rob returned the favour winning holes 18 to 21, to keep the match in the balance.
With 4 holes to go both players were a chance to win but Alan steadied with wins on the 4th and 6th and a lead of dormie 3. Both players made par on the tricky par 3 7th which was enough to make our Alan Horsfall our 2017 C Grade Club Champion with a 3&2 victory.
D Grade Championships
A 27 hole final also faced our D Grade competitors of Cooper Fort and Joe Michalik. It was the young Fort that had the better of the early going taking a lead of 3 through the first 9 holes before Joe fought back to square the match after 14 holes.
However that was as close as Joe could get the match losing 5 of the next 7 holes to give Cooper a commanding 6 up lead and when both players halved the 22nd hole Cooper Fort became our 2017 D Grade Club Champion with a 6&5 victory.